Harlan Coben - Home

Myron did not reply.

“You know that when I care, I care with a ferocity that doesn’t always make me rational. We have had success in the past with you taking the lead.”

“We’ve also messed up,” Myron said. “We’ve lost a lot of people.”

“We have,” Win agreed, “but we win more than we lose.”

Win waited for Myron to continue.

“Brooke would want to know,” Myron said. “We should tell her.”

“Okay, then.”

“But first,” Myron said, “let’s confront Patrick with what we know.”

You don’t get anywhere on the phone, so Myron and Win took the drive out to the Moore home in New Jersey. There was no answer at the door. Myron took a peek in the window of the garage. No car. Win spotted the FOR SALE sign in the yard.

“You saw this?” Win asked.

Myron nodded. “They’re all moving to Pennsylvania to be closer to Hunter.”

“Do you have Hunter’s address?”

“I do.”

Myron took out his mobile phone and brought up a map. “According to this, we can make it in an hour and fifteen minutes.”

“Perhaps,” Win said, “I should drive.”

Less than an hour later, they reached a dirt road deep in the woods. There was a chain blocking access. A rusted sign read:

LAKE CHARMAINE-PRIVATE

Myron got out of the car. There was a padlock on one end of the chain. Using his heel, Myron kicked down on it. The lock broke. The chain fell to the ground with a heavy clunk.

“We’re trespassing,” Myron said.

“Let’s live on the edge, old friend. That’s where all the goodies reside.”

As they drove up the dirt road, Lake Charmaine in all its splendor rose before them. The sun glistened off the water. Myron checked the GPS. It instructed them to circle to the other side of the lake. They veered to the left and drove past the kind of log cabin you thought existed only in old movies. A car with an MD license plate was parked in front of it. On the dock, a man about Myron’s age cast out his fishing line slowly, gracefully, like poetry in motion. He then handed the rod to a small boy and put his arm around a woman’s waist. They stood there, this idyllic family of three, and Myron thought about Terese. The man on the dock turned at the sound of the car. The woman kept her eyes on the little boy with the fishing rod. The man’s eyes narrowed as Myron and Win cruised past. Myron waved to show him that they meant him no harm. The man hesitated and then waved back.

They drove past ruins of what might have once been camp cabins or cabins used on a retreat or something. A construction crew was now building a house on the site.

“Nancy Moore’s new residence?” Win asked.

“Maybe.”

A pickup truck was parked at the top of Hunter Moore’s long driveway, blocking access.

“Seems he doesn’t welcome visitors,” Win said.

They parked on the road. Myron and Win got out of the car. Everything echoed in the stillness-the car doors closing, their feet hitting the dirt road. Myron had read once that a sound never fully dies, that if you scream in woods like these, the echo will just keep reverberating, traveling, growing fainter and fainter but never disappearing in total. Myron didn’t know whether that was true or not, but if it was, he could imagine a scream here staying vibrant for too long.

“What are you thinking about?” Win asked him.

“How screams echo.”

“You’re fun.”

“Remind me never to buy a lake house.”

They walked past the pickup truck and up the drive. Up ahead, in a front yard overlooking all of Lake Charmaine, Hunter Moore sat on an Adirondack chair. He didn’t get up when he spotted them. He didn’t wave or nod or show any signs he saw them coming. He just kept his gaze on the horizon, on his perfect view of Lake Charmaine. A whiskey bottle sat on his right.

There was a rifle on his lap.

“Hey, Hunter,” Myron said.

Win moved to the side a bit, putting distance between him and Myron. Myron got it. Don’t give anyone two targets so close together.

Hunter smiled up at him. It was the smile of the heavily inebriated. “Hey, Myron.” The sun was in his eyes, so Hunter used his hand to block it. “Is that you, Win?”

“Yes,” Win said.

“You’re back?”

“No.”

“Huh?”

“I’m kidding,” Win said.

“Oh.” Hunter’s cackle-laugh ripped through the stillness. The sound almost made Myron jump. “Good one, Win.”

Win looked at Myron. The look said that they had nothing to fear. There was no way Hunter would be able to reach for his rifle and aim it before Win, who was always armed, took him out. They moved closer.

“Look at that,” Hunter said with awe, gesturing at the vista behind them.

Myron looked. Win didn’t.

“Unbelievable, right?” Hunter said. “This spot”-he shook his head in wonderment-“it’s like God painted this giant canvas himself.”

“If you think about it,” Win said, “he did.”

“Whoa,” Hunter said, like a stoner. Myron wondered whether he had consumed substances other than alcohol. “That’s so true.”

“Where’s Patrick?” Myron asked.

“I don’t know.”

Myron pointed to the house behind him. “Is he inside?”

“Nope.”

“How about Nancy?”

Hunter shook his head. “Also nope.”

“Can we all go inside?”

Hunter kept shaking his head. “No reason to; no one in there. A beautiful day like this is to be cherished. We got a couple of chairs, if you want to sit and enjoy the view with me.”

Myron took him up on the offer. This chair too was turned to the lake, so that Myron and Hunter sat side by side, both facing the view rather than each other. Win stayed standing.

“We really need to find Patrick,” Myron said.

“Did you call Nancy?”

“She’s not answering. Where are they?”

Hunter still had the rifle on his lap. His hand had been slowly sliding toward the trigger, almost indiscernibly. “He needs time, Myron. Can you imagine what his last ten years have been like?”

“Can you imagine,” Win said, “what Rhys’s current year is still like?”

Hunter winced when he heard that and closed his eyes. Myron was tempted to grab the rifle, but Win shook him off. He was right. The rifle was not a threat. Not with Win nearby. If they snatched it away, Hunter would clam up, get defensive. Let him keep his security blanket.

“You met Lionel,” Hunter said. “Dr. Stanton, I mean. He says that if you want Patrick to open up, he needs time. We want a quiet, simple life for him.”

“Is that why Nancy is moving him out here?”

A slow smile came to his lips. “This place has always been my solace. I’m third generation here. My grandfather taught my father how to fly-fish on that lake. My father taught me. When Patrick was little, I taught him. We’d catch sunnies and trout and…”

His voice faded away.

Win looked at Myron with flat eyes and played the air violin.

“I realize how hard this must have been on you,” Myron tried.

“I’m not looking for pity.”

“Of course not.”

“It’s like…” Hunter never took his eyes off the lake, never so much as glanced at Myron or Win. “It’s like I’ve lived two lives. I was one person-a normal, ordinary person, really-up until that day. And then, poof, I was someone else entirely after. Like we all walked through some science fiction portal and entered a different world.”

“Everything changed,” Myron said, trying to keep him going.

“Yes.”

“You got divorced.”

“Right.” His hand found the bottle, his eyes still glued to the vista. “I don’t know. That might have happened anyway. But yeah, Nancy and I broke up. The constant reminder of what happened, the horror, and this person, your life partner, she’s just there every day, in your face, poking your memory, you know what I mean?”